Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

— Genesis 2:24

Either before you arrive or as you wait for class to begin, find this short passage from Sacred Scripture in your Bible or through an online search. Reading it will prepare you for this week’s material.

— Genesis 2:18–25

O God, our Father, who made us male and female, help us to know the tremendous dignity of the sacrament of marriage and strengthen husbands and wives by your grace, that they may better manifest the love of Christ for the Church. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

As you watch the video lesson, refer to these key highlights. Feel free to use the space provided to take notes.

• Marriage is not a creation of man for man’s benefit but rather a creation of God for man’s happiness.

• God created marriage at the very moment he created the human race male and female.

• Achieving the goods of marriage and parenthood are not mere options in life but the very reason for our creation as male and female.

• The Church affirms that the truth about marriage applies to everyone, at every time, in every place, even if not every time and place has recognized and embraced marriage’s full truth.

• When a baptized man and baptized woman enter marriage, their marriage itself becomes a channel of grace through which God communicates his love to the couple, and through which the couple expresses its love for God and neighbor.

• Christian reflection on the nature of marriage has long recognized that marriage has two principal ends or purposes: the good of the couple and the procreation and education of children.

Wisdom of the Saints

There is a certain love deeply seated in our nature that imperceptibly knits together these bodies of ours . . . . Nothing so welds our life together as the love of man and wife.

— St. John Chrysostom

Take a moment to go through these questions with the group. For larger classes, divide them up into partners. Answers are provided to assist you in leading discussion.

1. When did God create the sacrament of marriage?

   God created marriage in the Garden of Eden at the very moment he created the human race male and female, establishing the one-flesh union of man and woman as the regular way that men and women would naturally achieve perfection and happiness in life. In this sense, it is ingrained in our nature and written into our DNA.

2. While marriage has been remarkably consistent across all times and peoples, what is unique about a Christian marriage?

   The primary difference in a Christian marriage is that it is not simply a natural institution but a sacrament; that is, it is a channel of grace through which God communicates his love to the couple and through which the couple expresses its love for God and neighbor. When Christians marry, the very love of God himself, possessed by the couple in charity, becomes the foundation of the couple’s marital love.

   Furthermore, Christian marriage is an image in the world of Christ’s union with the Church in which husband and wife are given the grace to submit to each other—the husband in imitation of Christ’s sacrifice for the Church and the wife in imitation of the Church’s reception of Christ’s sacrifice.

3. What are the principal ends, or purposes, of marriage, and what marks should a marriage have when these purposes are recognized?

Christian reflection on the nature of marriage has long recognized that marriage has two principal ends or purposes: the good of the couple and the procreation and education of children. Any attempt at marriage that does not have both of these ends in view is invalid. Because marriage has these two ends, every marriage should have each of the following marks: unity and indissolubility, fidelity, and openness to new life.

Catechism Connection

Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator’s eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: “And God blessed them, and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.’”

— CCC 1604

Discuss these questions with the group, pair them with a partner, or ask them to meditate on their own.

1. For those who are married, how does it affect the way you view your own marriage to know that it is a sacrament and a channel of grace just like Holy Communion or Baptism?

   Knowing marriage is a sacrament means seeing the marriage bond not merely as a contract or emotion but as an outward sign instituted by Christ that actually conveys grace. It reorients daily life: conflicts, joys, and duties become opportunities for mutual sanctification; the spouses are called to grow in self-giving love that reflects Christ’s love for the Church. This understanding deepens commitment, shapes priorities (service, forgiveness, fidelity), and makes the family a visible witness of God’s life and grace in the world.

1. How do marriage and the Christian family serve as the foundation of society? In what ways has the erosion of marriage harmed our culture?

After concluding your group discussion, return to watch the second video where converts to the Catholic faith discuss their conversion and how they live today as Catholics.

Rome to Home

Authentic married love is caught up into divine love . . . so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in [the] sublime office of being a father or mother.

— Pope Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, no. 48

• Nuptial Blessing: The extended prayer the priest prays over the couple during the Catholic rite of marriage which contains a summary of what the Church believes about this sacrament.
• Indissolubility: One of the principal marks of a Christian marriage, which states that the union between man and woman is unable to be divided or destroyed through divorce.
• Cohabitation: The act of an unmarried man and unmarried woman living together and sharing a sexual relationship outside the sacrament of marriage.

God’s Word

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

— Ephesians 5:31–33

O God, who in your unspeakable providence chose blessed Joseph to be the spouse of your most holy Mother, grant, we beseech you, that we may deserve to have him as our intercessor in heaven, whom we venerate on earth as our protector, Who lives and reigns world without end. Amen.

This serves as a review of the material that your students can read after each class, but it may be helpful for you to read as well. Consider reading it before each class to better prepare you for group discussion.

During the Catholic rite of marriage, the priest prays what is called the “nuptial blessing” over the couple. This extended prayer contains a beautiful summary of what the Church believes about marriage, especially about the sacrament’s origins. According to Christian belief, marriage is not a creation of man for man’s benefit but rather God is the author of marriage; in a certain sense, we could say that marriage is a creation of God for man’s happiness.

Marriage is part of God’s original plan. He created marriage at the very moment he created the human race male and female, establishing the one-flesh union of man and woman as the regular way that men and women would naturally achieve perfection and happiness through a communion of life and of love. With the poetry of a prayer, the nuptial blessing speaks of the origins of marriage in this way: “O God, who by your mighty power created all things out of nothing, and, when you had set in place thebeginnings of the universe, formed man and woman in your own image, making the woman an inseparable helpmate to the man, that they might no longer be two, but one flesh, and taught that what you were pleased to make one must never be divided, . . . look now with favor on these your servants, joined together in Marriage.”

We cannot overemphasize the lesson contained in this blessing. Marriage is an institution created by God in which man and woman through an exclusive and permanent bond, achieve a kind of perfection in each other and bring forth children into the world. Following the indications of nature, the Christian affirms that every man is oriented to reaching maturity in being a husband and father, and likewise, every woman is oriented to reaching maturity in being a wife and mother. Achieving the goods of marriage and parenthood are not mere options in life but the very reason for our creation as male and female.

There are legitimate reasons, of course—including religious ones—why individual men and women might forego marrying and starting a family. (For example, religious vows include a promise to imitate the perfect chastity of Christ; they thus consecrate the person to God in a special way.) But the truth of marriage is so ingrained in our nature that no attempt to redefine marriage—whether by an individual or by a society, even for the best of motives—can change its essence or its features. It is a feature of reality, willed and chosen by God, written as it is into our very DNA. The nuptial blessing expresses the primordial and indeed tenacious nature of marriage by praising God for the fact that “the companionship [that man and woman] had in the beginning is endowed with the one blessing not forfeited by original sin nor washed away by the flood.” The tragedies of life or a person’s sins cannot exclude him from affirming the truth of marriage.

The Church affirms that the truth about marriage holds at every time, in every place, even if not every time and place has recognized and embraced marriage’s full truth. Although different cultures and religions have strayed from this truth, it remains remarkable how consistent the practice of marriage has been across times and peoples. Still, errors regarding marriage mark human history. Even the Chosen People developed an excuse for divorce, which eventually Jesus corrected. He said to the Pharisees, who

defended the Jewish practice of divorce: “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery” (Mt 19:8–9). The beginning to which Jesus refers is the creation of man and woman, when God established it as good for man that he leave his father and mother and cling to his wife (see Gn 2:24). From the beginning, this clinging was created by God to be lifelong.

Although the truth of marriage applies equally to all men and woman, it manifests itself in Christian marriage in a particular way. When two Christians marry, they enter into something higher than a natural institution: they enter into a Christian sacrament. Because the baptized possess the virtue of charity, a baptized man and a baptized woman enter into marriage with the ability to share the love of God, the very love thatcharity gives them, with each other. Christian marriage, therefore, involves something supernatural, and so this sacrament raises natural marriage to a higher supernatural level. When Christians marry, the very love of God himself, possessed by the couple in charity, becomes the foundation of the couple’s marital love. This is the mystery to which the Church refers when she says that marriage is the only natural institution “raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament” (CCC 1601). When a baptized man and baptized woman enter marriage, their marriage itself becomes a channel of grace through which God communicates his love to the couple, and through which the couple expresses its love for God and neighbor. Furthermore, Christian marriage becomes an image in the world of Christ’s union with the Church, in which husband and wife are given the grace to submit to each other: the husband in imitation of Christ’s sacrifice for the Church and the wife in imitation of the Church’s reception of Christ’s sacrifice.

Christian reflection on the nature of marriage has long recognized that marriage has two principal ends or purposes: the good of the couple and the procreation and education of children. Any attempt at marriage, therefore, that does not have both of these ends in view is invalid. Because marriage has these two ends, every marriage should have each of the following marks: unity and indissolubility, fidelity, and openness to new life. These marks are not artificial or arbitrary, nor are they mere ideals; they are of the essence of marriage and establish the contours of the couple’s sexual life. Though sex is only one aspect of marriage, it remains a potent one that requires the qualities of indissolubility, fidelity, and openness to life in order to keep it selfless, self-giving, and chaste. Divorce, which is opposed to marriage’s indissolubility; adultery, which is opposed to marriage’s fidelity; and contraception and unnatural sex, which are opposed to marriage’s fruitfulness, are all inimical to achieving the God-given ends of marriage.

Since the sexual revolution, there has been much confusion over the goods of marriage for individuals and for society. Many have despaired that these goods can be achieved, or even that they should be sought with only one person over the course of a lifetime. The rise of substitutes for marriage, including cohabitation, reveals the uncertainty that many feel toward God’s…plan for man and woman. Nevertheless, the truth of marriage endures, and there remains grace available to all, especially in the sacraments of Matrimony, Reconciliation, and the Eucharist. This grace heals the effects of sin and provides the strength necessary for every man and woman to say “I do” to his or her spouse for the whole of their natural lives. The nuptial blessing ends with a prayer for this very thing—that every couple, relying on the grace of Christ, may reach old age, and eventually heaven, together: “Grant, O Lord, that, reaching at last together the fullness of years for which they hope, they may come to the life of the blessed in the Kingdom of heaven.”

Hahn, Scott. First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity. Image, 2006.